April 05, 2016
Philadelphia residents summoned for jury duty who have no desire to attend received good news Monday.
The city has given up on its latest attempt to crack down on no-show jurors, according to the Inquirer.
The Juror Scofflaw Court program, which was resurrected in 2014, has proved ineffective at improving the attendance rates of jurors.
Jury Commissioner Daniel Rendine told the Inquirer that the program "is no longer being used because it's just too costly to run and there aren't enough resources."
Rendine told Metro, "From what we could see, it really didn't increase our response rate. The only real results we got were a lot more phone calls from people trying to see, 'Am I scheduled for jury duty?' and making sure they got their excuses right."
Under the current law, a failure to respond to a jury summons is punishable by a maximum fine of $500 and 10 days imprisonment.
